Guardrail systems are commonly used along highways and other roadways to prevent or reduce damage to vehicles and their occupants when they leave the road. These guardrails are designed to redirect the vehicle back onto the roadway and absorb the energy from the errant vehicle in a controlled manner.
One such guardrail design employs cables or wire ropes strung between, and coupled to, a plurality of support posts to restrain vehicles to the road. These cables or wire ropes may be coupled to the support post using a variety of bolt members, such as “J-shaped” bolts or other hook-type bolt members. In this manner, the cables distribute the force of the impact of an errant vehicle among the support posts to which they are coupled.
Despite their widespread use, some previous cable guardrail systems have suffered from a variety problems relating to the premature release of the cables from the support posts due to the failure of the bolt members employed to fasten the cables. Due to this premature release, the force of the impact of an errant vehicle is distributed among fewer support posts than originally intended. This can lead to increased deflection of the system, increasing guardrail maintenance costs and leaving the guardrail systems less able to withstand subsequent impacts from other errant vehicles.